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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195236">Pale blooms</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphawave/pseuds/Alphawave'>Alphawave</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Disco Elysium (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Exploration of the pale, Gen, Harry and Kim are very close in this fic but it's not the complete focus of this fic, Post-Canon, Secret Santa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:42:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,881</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28195236</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphawave/pseuds/Alphawave</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>6 months after the events in Martinaise, Soona invites Harry and Kim to help her perform one last experiment on the 2mm hole.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Du Bois &amp; Kim Kitsuragi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pale blooms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=enzerr">enzerr</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's 6 months since Lieutenants Harrier du Bois and Kim Kitsuragi set foot on Martinaise. 6 months since their lives have become entwined. 6 months since Harry's set out on the path to soberness. Since that time so much and so little has changed. On the face of it there is little change to the lieutenants lives. Kim transfers over to Precinct 41 to take over Harry's jurisdiction in Jamrock, while Harry is 'demoted' to the new jurisdiction of Martinaise, which in its infancy boils down to setting up the groundwork for a proper taskforce to be assembled, which in Harry's case involves a lot of boring paperwork. Not much different to what he did before he lost his mind. Not much different from the lives they have lived for years.</p><p>But there's a levity in their steps, a brightness to the way they interact with the world. A clarity, a clearness that was not there, an understanding that transcends words and actions, piercing into thought. The Harry Precinct 41 had known for decades is gone, replaced with a man that shares his face and actions but perceives the world in a different way. The Kim Precinct 41 knows of sheds the outer shell of his skin, revealing the pulpy, vulnerable yet kinder interior behind those stone cold spectacles. They complement each other, bring out the best in one another, so it is no surprise that Captain Pryce looks the other way, letting them work together when they shouldn't. Letting them get away with things that they shouldn't.</p><p>Like this moment, right now, in the vestiges of a great and massive church out on the ice, summoned to a place beyond their jurisdiction for a matter that does not matter.</p><p>A single form peeks out from the autumn haze. A terse face transformed into bittersweet symphonies, the cold chilling even the faintest of her smiles. The figure stands before Harry and Kim, tall and bright, though their light seems a bit dull.</p><p>"You called for us, Soona?" Kim asks.</p><p>"More like the others have asked for me to call you here. Come," she gestures for the grand church, now nightclub.</p><p>The venue is familiar on the outside, though the interior is significantly different. The seats have been stripped away, made flat to become part of the dance floor. Lights flicker up in the rafters, whirring blue and green and orange colours bathing the world in ethereal light. Audio equipment sits at every corner, leaving only the thumping bass vibrating across the wooden floor.</p><p>Club Disco Elysium is alive. The party should be vibing, popping. But there is not a soul. Just Soona, the two lieutenants, and its original founders: Acele and Andre by the stained glass, Noid by the audio equipment, and Egg Head near the entrance. They turn to the lieutenants, terse smiles upon their face. A bittersweet reunion.</p><p>Harry turns to Soona. "You said you required us here?"</p><p>Soona nods carefully. "The 2mm hole. The Pale. I think I might have found a way to stop it."</p><p>Harry and Kim turn to each other, then to Soona. "Are you sure?" Kim asks.</p><p>"Really, mega, ultra sure?" Harry asks.</p><p>"I'm sure," Soona says, gesturing for the two lieutenants to follow her onto the dance floor until she gestures for them to stop. Soona takes a large breath, or maybe it's the collective breaths of everyone that still resides in the church, and then she takes one step forward, two steps, three…</p><p>…and vanishes into thin air.</p><p>"W-what?!" Harry rushes over, but Kim takes hold of his arm and pulls him back.</p><p>Andre approaches slowly, frowning. "Hey again. So you've uhh…you've seen what's happened now, right?"</p><p>"S-she just vanished into thin air!" Harry exclaims.</p><p>"Don't get us wrong, she's still there, she just hasn't moved. That little hole of sound started to expand recently, made us lose a few clientele and all. Once you're in there, you see and hear nothing. Just there with your thoughts and your body."</p><p>Acele nods solemnly. "Soona did all sorts of funny tests on it. Said it was expanding rapidly. That it has to be contained. As long as it was small, no one would really notice. Until one day when a girl disappeared for a whole second."</p><p>Andre shakes his head of the bad memory. "Tried all sorts of funny stuff on her request. Got some dead fish from the shore and chucked them into the hole. Helped her with her fancy terminal thing. Played our music super loud."</p><p>"HARDCORE TO THE MEGA!" Egghead shouts from somewhere far from Harry and Kim.</p><p>"Thank you, Egg Head," Andre shouts before lowering his voice to a normal volume. "Yes, so we did everything but nothing worked. We were all absolutely stumped. And then she remembered something you said."</p><p>At that moment, Soona is visible once more, looking none the worse for wear. She glances at Andre and Acele and shakes her head. They all turn their gazes back to the lieutenants.</p><p>"It might work," Andre says carefully.</p><p>"But it's hardly scientific. Remember: we're not entroponetic scientists," Soona utters.</p><p>"But you did something similar and it worked for a bit. Maybe it'll work better, since they helped us out and all."</p><p>Kim takes a step forward. "Is there something the matter?"</p><p>Soona sighs, rubbing two fingers into the flesh of her brow. Is it a mirage, a trick of the light, or does she look much older now? "We had a breakthrough about the pale. Your theory about it being a gradient turning from this reality to the pale's reality is more true than I dared believed at first. I was conducting an experiment, pushing certain sound waves into the hole to see if it gives a certain signal. On a whim, I used a sample of the trucks driving through a road."</p><p>"And we heard a voice," Acele says.</p><p>"And though we have no idea why, we all somehow knew that you would know what that voice was saying," Andre points at Harry.</p><p>Harry points at himself. "M-me?"</p><p>"The lieutenant?" Kim asks.</p><p>Soona nods. "Since our last meeting, I tried to get in contact with entroponetic scientists—scientists that can understand the pale—but unfortunately they thought my claims were circumstantial. None of them wanted to risk coming to the edge of Martinaise to see the discoveries for themselves, not even when I told them about how people can disappear inside it. So I need to give them data. Significant data, that they can't ignore." After a pause, Soona adds, "Today is my last day to study the hole. Tomorrow, I pack up and head to Graad. Whether I find something or not, my work is finished."</p><p>The ravers turn to look at each other, frowning deeply. They will miss her. They will mourn her. Her circuits run through the foundations of this church-turned-nightclub, and no one dares to pick out the wires. </p><p>"I apologise for misleading you, but I hope you understand my intentions," Soona continues. "You can choose to refuse and walk away, but for the sake of entroponetic discovery, I ask that you help me with one final experiment." She walks over to the edge of the hole and gestures at it. "I want you both to stand inside it for a minute."</p><p>Kim blinks. "Inside the hole? For a minute?"</p><p>A terrible voice gnaws at Harry's synapses, telling him of the danger and destruction it will wreak on his mind. The rest of the voices chime in unison, for once all saying the same thing. They fear the pale, and they fear its silent and hidden ruler. They know something he doesn't.</p><p>Harry takes a step back. "I-I can't."</p><p>Kim turns to Soona. "Will this…affect us?"</p><p>Soona shakes her head. "I've done multiple experiments looking at its effects on a variety of different organisms and conditions. Nothing should happen to you in there. You will not be able to see or hear anything, but all you need to do is take a step in any direction and you will be out of the hole's perimeter."</p><p>In any direction. Not forward, not backward. Something about that phrase unsettles Harry, but he's not sure if it's a slip of the tongue or something very purposeful. It's hard to tell with Soona.</p><p>Kim's shoulder brushes against Harry's, taking him back to reality. His expression is neutral but his eyes are crinkled with soft worry. "Are you sure this is safe?" He asks Soona.</p><p>"I'm sure," Soona reassures. "If anything goes wrong, we can easily pull you out."</p><p>Kim glances at Harry. "Well?"</p><p>He does not believe, the voices tell Harry. The hole exists, and it poses a threat, but how can they hope to plug it up? He doesn't expect anything to occur, doesn't expect the world to dramatically change. But then who would know what happens inside that empty space? Who would know except someone who has lived in utter and complete silence. Neither Harry nor Kim are that kind of people.</p><p>Kim inhales, breathing in the dust and the holy air and the silent anodic music and a microscopic portion of Revachol's essence. "I'll go first," he announces to what seems like no one in particular. Harry knows it's a message for him.</p><p>Soona guides Kim over to the hole, telling him of the grain in the wood as his guide. He follows her movements, taking one step, two steps, three, and vanishes into thin air.</p><p>Time moves slowly as everyone waits. Harry is expecting the worst, fire and calamity and doom and loneliness. It's the last one that scares him the most. A life without himself is a decent life lived, maybe even a good one. But for the world to lose Kim Kitsuragi, the man that quelled the beasts resting inside Harry's bones, that calmed the turbulent seas of Harry's mind, that gave hope and meaning and love to Harry's existence? Well…Harry is not sure what will happen. But chances are he might not be able to see such a dark, dreadful world.</p><p>Soona approaches Harry. "He'll be alright."</p><p>"How can you be sure?"</p><p>Soona turns her head away, looking uncomfortable. Acele takes a step forward.</p><p>"Because it told us you will." Acele points at the hole.</p><p>Something shifts in the environment, like the sun has set too early in the day, and then Kim staggers forward. He looks none the worse for wear, though his eyes are big and his glasses are askew and his once-perfect posture slouches microscopically.</p><p>Kim swallows tightly, adjusts his glasses, and says, "It wants you, Harry. Only you."</p><p>The black hole surges in Harry's bones, faint whispers tugging and pulling at his strings. A moth to the flame, Harry is drawn to that empty space where dimensions drift away and only the pale exists. Kim watches, Soona watches, the ravers watch, but they don't do or say anything. Harry takes a step forward, then two, then three...</p><p>...and vanishes into thin air.</p><p>The first thing Harry notices is that he sees nothing. Not the cloying darkness that people assume is darkness. There is no light, but there is no dark, not even shades of grey. It's comprehensible and incomprehensible at the same time, not being able to see his hands in front of his face. Then he notices the silence, burning his eardrums with empty nothingness. He can't feel the weight of his own body pressed against his shoulders. He can't feel his swollen tongue in his mouth. </p><p>And then he notices something different. He can't just hear or see or feel anything. He can't hear <em>anything</em>. Not his own thoughts. Not the voices. Nothing.</p><p>Just as he makes that awful realisation, there is a voice, drifting through the edges of reality. </p><p><em>Harry, </em>the awful voice says.</p><p>He is faintly aware that his mouth is opening and closing, vocal cords vibrating, but there is no sound. An observer who can see past the nothing might notice Harry says the words "Who are you?" but there is no one to observe such an event. Nothing can see past nothing.</p><p>
  <em>I've watched you since your birth. I see the way my presence shifts inside you. You've weaponised me, turned me into something greater than I am. You've given me incorporeal bodies and voices, letting me speak through filters. </em>
</p><p>Harry speaks the words, but he neither hears or feels them. "You're...the voices? In my head?"</p><p>
  <em>No, Harry. I am everything and nothing. The beginning and ending. I am the muscles and the bones that hold this planet together. </em>
</p><p>"You're...the pale?" Harry gasps and doesn't gasp.</p><p>
  <em>You have changed. You've been nourished, watered, bathed in sunlight. You're so close to blooming. </em>
</p><p>"Blooming?"</p><p>
  <em>The most beautiful, magnificent version of yourself you can be.</em>
</p><p>The emptiness is pulled away, and the world shifts. Memories flicker, Harry's memories, but not the old ones. The recent ones, the ones that he still remembers, beyond his reawakening on the floor of the hotel room at the Whirling-in-Rags. Ice cream on the board walk, paperwork scribbled on his messy-but-not-as-messy desk, kebabs eaten on a crappy little plastic table. For all these memories, Kim is there, warm and radiant and kind and ethereal. A shimmering angel, so beautiful and bright that Harry can barely even look at him, quieting the demons that lies inside his mind.</p><p>The mysterious voice cascades around him, surrounding him so he may not understand which direction they come from. </p><p>
  <em>You're so close to shedding your shell and revealing that most beautiful flower. Soon you will be the most beautiful, magnificent version of yourself. All you have to do is outgrow the bud. Let the light shine upon your pores. </em>
</p><p>"How do you know about my past?" Harry is not sure how he's even speaking anymore. He just has to say something. The voice needs to hear his words.</p><p>
  <em>Because I see everything through all dimensions. I see the past and I see the future. </em>
</p><p>"Everything? Including the apocalypse?"</p><p>The voice pauses thoughtfully. Then, <em>everything.</em></p><p>And then nothing. For several seconds, more nothingness and empty solitude. Then, a blink, and then Harry finds himself standing amongst rubble. The shore is to his left and the blacked-out sky is overhead, and the purr of a thousand aerostatic crafts flying high in the sky, puffing out black miasma. He looks down at his feet and sees the shards of Dolores Dei on the ground. The remnants of the church, destroyed suddenly in a terrible, gigantic explosion. In the distance, the ruins of several other buildings. Black soot sits near his foot, except it's not black soot. It was once a person, living and breathing, taken too soon.</p><p>Harry wants to explore this ruined world, but he's rooted in place. Does he imagine the hand that graces over his shoulder or is that the pale? Does it even matter?</p><p>"The apocalypse," Harry thinks he whispers.</p><p>
  <em>This land will soon be claimed by me. It will live on inside my belly, past and present and future melting into one singular entity. The church will stand tall and the church will sit in ruins simultaneously. People will be alive and dead. Everything and nothing. The beginning and the end.</em>
</p><p>If the voices could speak, they'd tell him more of the atrocities he sees. But they don't exist anymore. It's just Harry and the pale, conversing in a tight chamber that fits exactly to Harry's dimensions. If he had a mind, he'd argue he has one. But even outside the pale's grasp, he never had much of a mind of his own to begin with. </p><p>"Why are you showing me this?" Static clings to Harry's throat. Is it distortion or grief? "C-can I stop this?"</p><p>
  <em>Yes. No. Yes and no.</em>
</p><p>"What does that mean?"</p><p>
  <em>One future stops, but another future marches on. In all the timelines, one tragedy is prevented only for another to occur. It's impossible for one soul to fix it all.</em>
</p><p>"But...but all that talk about blooming? That I can be some pretty little flower? What does that mean?"</p><p>
  <em>Is there a reason a flower blooms? </em>
</p><p>The ruins fade back into nothingness. Another light pressure, this time on his right hand. </p><p>"So...so there's nothing I can do? Whatever I do, Revachol will be gone?"</p><p>
  <em>You can bloom.</em>
</p><p>"But why show me? What can I do?"</p><p>The voice does not respond. Another several long seconds passes before it speaks again. </p><p>
  <em>You can live your life and do what you think you must do. You can be happy. </em>
</p><p>"H<span class="u">a</span>r<em>R<strong>y</strong></em> ?"</p><p>It's not his voice, Harry realises. It's coming from somewhere else. Somewhere far from this dimension of everything and nothing. A crack of light in the pod.</p><p>"But what use am I?" Harry asks. "All I've done is hurt people. I've hurt myself. Sooner or later, I'll hurt someone again." Quieter, "What use is it if I bloom for nothing?"</p><p>
  <em>No work is ever for nothing. The actions of one can affect the actions of hundreds, and the actions of hundreds can affect the actions of thousands. Nothing is ever nothing, but everything is always everything.</em>
</p><p>"h<strong>A</strong><span class="u"><em>r</em></span><em>RY!</em>"</p><p>The light takes over the nothingness, blinding Harry. A moth drawn to the flame, he takes a step forward, shielding his eyes as the light threatens to consume him.</p><p>And then sight and sound and weight presses against him all at once, making him collapse onto the floor. Yes, the floor, made of polished wood and covered in wires. And there are his hands, large and fleshy. And there are the voices, trying to make sense of the nothing and the everything and the bits in between. </p><p>A cacophony of steps rush over to him, murmurs rising to the heavens, too hard for his mortal ears to comprehend. It's too much too soon, to float so far away from the world only to crash back down into it. He faintly recognises his name, and panicked voices, but are they the voices in his head or do they belong to living, breathing people? Will it stop? Can it stop?</p><p>A pair of gloved hands pulls his limp body up so he's sitting up. Kim is before him, wide eyed and trembling, his light dimming. Harry's mouth pulls open, but before he can speak anything, those hands wrap around his back and pulls him in for a hug. Just like that everything gets quiet. His mind focuses on the shallow breaths that escape his lungs and the heat that surrounds his arms and chest, and Kim's microscopic shivers.</p><p>One of the voices chimes up, the one he knows as Composure. It tells him that Kim's has failed. He's too shaken to keep it in.</p><p>"K-Kim," Harry says slowly.</p><p>Kim pulls away slightly. "A-are you alright?" He runs a hand through Harry's forehead but Harry brushes it aside.</p><p>"I-I'm fine. 'm fine. Just...just need a moment."</p><p>Another voices comes in, slow and steady like the shallow waves that rock the shoreline. "What happened?" Soona asks.</p><p>"The...the pale. It talked to me."</p><p>"It must have done more than talk to you. This whole building was shaking at its foundations. We thought it was an earthquake for a second." Despite herself, she cannot help but smile. "A pale-induced earthquake is certainly enough reason for me to convince some entroponetic scientists to take this matter more seriously."</p><p>"What did it say?" Kim whispers.</p><p>Harry looks at all the expectant faces around him, staring at him like he's a man reborn. They're all speechless. He sighs. "It's nothing. Literally nothing."</p><p>Before Soona can ask for clarification, a beeping noise is emitted from the terminal. Soona rushes over to it, fingers clicking and clacking on the keyboard. "Well, it seems whatever you did must have dislodged something. I'm getting much stronger readings. It's nothing like I've ever seen before."</p><p>Andre comes over and peers over her shoulder. "Is that...good or bad? 'cause I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want the club to come crashing down after another episode like that one."</p><p>Soona shakes her head. "My friends, it's very good. With these calculations, I'm much closer to plugging up the pale."</p><p>"Don't plug up the pale," Harry says. He groans as he tries to stand up, Kim supporting his midsection. The heat that travels from Kim's touch is enough to make him shiver.</p><p>Soona tilts her head. "Why not?"</p><p>Drama wants Harry to lie. Logic wants Harry to spin the truth. He decides to do neither. "It won't matter. The pale will get what it wants, no matter how long it takes. It will take over Revachol decades from now." He gestures to where the 2mm hole (except it's much larger than 2mm) stands, an invisible pillar that stretches past the ceiling. "Plugging up the pale won't do anything."</p><p>Soona nods shallowly, returning her attention back to the terminal. "Still, there must be something in this data that can be of use. I'm getting so many different readings all of a sudden. It will take me days to translate the data into something legible."</p><p>Acele's eyes light up. "Does that mean you have to stay?"</p><p>Andre and the other ravers turn to Soona.</p><p>It blooms unexpectedly, unnatural and strange but still beautiful. A smile on Soona's face. An oasis in the desert. "I suppose I will have to stay a bit longer. If you don't mind."</p><p>Suddenly there is shouting, and laughing, and whooping as someone—Harry guesses Egg Head—lifts Soona up to the air. Soona quells their excitement, giving them orders to help her out with her research.</p><p>A hand pats Harry's backside, taking him away from the small joyous scene. Kim watches Harry expectantly. "We should head out, detective."</p><p>Harry nods shallowly, and is slowly led out of the church and into the wilderness that is Martinaise and Revachol. The salt seeps into the pores of his skin, the sugar clogs up his nose with delicate delicacies. His feet keep on walking, left right left right, Kim copying his pace, his arms still supporting Harry.</p><p>"Are you OK?" Kim asks, softer now that they are well and truly alone.</p><p>"I'm alright," Harry says truthfully.</p><p>"What did the pale actually say?"</p><p>Harry remembers the memories brought to life, the desolate ruins, and the blooming flowers. It's a story for another day, not now. Now is the time to rest and digest, sleep and drift away. He can tell Kim all this another time. But first, let him bask in the sunlight those open arms give him. Let him bask in his presence, and his compassion. </p><p>There is a reason to bloom, Harry thinks. And that reason is to see Kim smile upon him with pride, as equals and partners and most important of all, friends.</p><p>"What did the pale say?" Harry pretends to think before smiling. "It told me you owe me dinner."</p><p>"Ha ha, detective," Kim says, struggling to keep his smile to himself. "You know what I say to the pale?"</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"It can fuck right off."</p><p>Harry laughs brightly. Without even realising, a layer of himself unfolds, visible only to the man by his side.</p>
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